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About this blog: I am a native of Alameda County, grew up in Pleasanton and currently live in the house I grew up in that is more than 100 years old. I spent 39 years in the daily newspaper business and wrote a column for more than 25 years in add... (More)

About this blog: I am a native of Alameda County, grew up in Pleasanton and currently live in the house I grew up in that is more than 100 years old. I spent 39 years in the daily newspaper business and wrote a column for more than 25 years in addition to writing editorials for more than 15 years. I have served as a director of many non-profits in the Valley and the broader Bay Area and currently serve as chair of Teen Esteem and on the advisory board of Shepherd?s Gate. I also served as founding chair of Heart for Africa and have travelled to Africa seven times to serve on mission trips. My wife, Betty Gail, has taught at Amador Valley High (from where we both graduated) since 1981. She and I both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, as did both of my parents and my three siblings. Given that Cal tradition, our daughter went south to the University of Southern California and graduated with a degree in international relations. Since graduation, she has taken three mission trips and will be serving in the Philippines for nine months starting in September. (Hide)

Local residents setting the example by conserving water

Uploaded: Apr 23, 2015

The Livermore Valley's residents and businesses deserve recognition for the excellent job they collectively did in reducing water use last year.
Pleasanton, with hefty penalties in its water rates, dropped 31 percent (103 gallons per day per capita), while Livermore went down 28 percent (87 gallons) for the municipal users while California Water Customers went down 32 percent (98 gallons), while Dublin San Ramon Services District customers reduced usages 30 percent (73 gallons). Both DSRSD and Livermore benefit from the use of recycled water for landscape irrigation.
The state water board's proposed regulations this week to implement Gov. Brown's mandatory 25 percent reductions include a ban on irrigating medians landscaped with grass. That likely will mean plenty of dead grass on Hopyard Road while the city finally gets its recycled water program goingsomething that will not take place until next summer at best.
Incidentally, the drought may have figured into the wise decision by Pleasanton leaders to install artificial turf on the new sports fields going into the Bernal Park. Bringing recycled water to the park is in the second phase of the city's plans to utilize more reclaimed water for irrigation.
Last summer, Pleasanton rented a tanker truck to deliver recycled water from the Dublin San Ramon Services District treatment plant to the city-owned Callippe Preserve course that is located seven miles away. That truck made 1,798 trips over six months to deliver recycled water to the course. The city spent $36k to use the recycled water and likely will do the same this year.

My mail box daily contains campaign literature for the 7th Senate district as both Susan Bonilla and Steve Glazer and so-called indendent committees try to sway voters in the May 17 runoff election for the seat that Mark DeSaulnier vacated after he was elected to Congress.
Bonilla certainly has the support of the traditional pro-Democrat groups including the unions, organizations such as Planned Parenthood and this week's latest announcement, the LGBT advocacy group. Most of the elected Democrats also are backing her.
The district leans strongly Democratic with a 43.5 percent registration compared to 29 percent for the Republicans. Glazer, who won the endorsement of the major newspapers, has courted Republican voters with pieces touting endorsements from Republican elected officials.
He's got a good chance if he gets a share of moderate Democrats and combines that with Republicans and independents (22 percent).
What is for sure is that the big money campaign will only get more heated as Election Day draws near.

Posted by Bill,
a resident of Amberwood/Wood Meadows,
on Apr 24, 2015 at 11:32 am

At last night's neighborhood meeting it became clear why Dan Smith is in a management by punishment mode for water conservation. The east Pleasanton development is dependent on securing 1100 acre feet of water. The only way this can happen is if Pleasanton conserves this much water. Reclamation projects by the city will save 1400 acre feet. So Dan Smith knows which side of the bread gets butter and it is not the side of the home owner. It is with a city council that is in a frenzy to develop every last vacant parcel of land in Pleasanton including annexing county land if need be. Fortunately the EIR (Environment Impact Report) was written so that any water conservation effort by the city cannot be used to justify an available potable water source for this project. Thank goodness someone had a brain when they put together the environmental analysis of this land area. I don't know about the rest of you but I am really trying to conserve water for the sake of protecting what we have now. I sure as heck do not want to conserve a precious resource only to have that resource be used by developers for their own profit.